8 Quotes & Sayings By Pierrejoseph Proudhon

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was an important French political theorist of the nineteenth century. He was against authority, believing that people should govern themselves. He also believed that property should be held in common among all people.

1
It is better to enlighten men’s minds than to teach them to be obstinate in their prejudices. PierreJoseph Proudhon
2
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294. PierreJoseph Proudhon
3
As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy PierreJoseph Proudhon
4
The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, “This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.” Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the people – who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the sale – will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor’s door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, “So perish idlers and vagrants! . PierreJoseph Proudhon
5
When politics and home life have become one and the same, when economic problems have been solved in such a way that individual and collective interests are identical — all constraints having disappeared — it is evident that we will be in a state of total liverty or anarchy. PierreJoseph Proudhon
6
When deeds speak, words are nothing. PierreJoseph Proudhon
7
I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I leave the business of governing the world. PierreJoseph Proudhon